WWDC Part 2 – Lion

So apple has just recently had its yearly world wide developers conference, this is an apple event were they talk to developers about what they can expect in the coming year. This is primarily a developers conference and very little happens, usually we get to see the new ios, the new apple os and that’s about it. Naturally all the blogs go crazy because thats what you do when there is a apple event. Usually this event leaves most of the apple fanboys disappointed because the rumors are far better than what they got or very little happened but that was not the case this year. Never in all my years of being a geek has any company lauched so much in one day, some at the keynote and some not, There is simply too much for me to write about in one article so ive decided to split it into three articles that will look at the three areas of apple ios, hardware and desktop software, this is the the desktop section of the write up and you wil find the hardware section (here) and the ios section (here).

The desktop was once apple most important business sector but sadly those days have gone now and the ipad has become far more important to apple and as a result ios has started to creep into the desktop. What follows is my essential cheat sheet for what is coming from apple for the desktop.

Icloud

If your reading this I think its safe to assume that you know what icloud is but at wwdc apple expanded what it could do. Where as before icloud was just used to sync all your data it is now capable of storing files allowing for easy collaboration, this functionality is very similar to drop box and google docs and I personally wont be using these applications if icloud is any good.

Reminder/notification centre

These are no lnger restricted to the iphone or ipad, in lion it will also be available to desktop users and thanks to icloud they will be synced between your devices.

Notes

Look above because the features and funcality are identical, this is just another example of a successful iphone app moving over to the desktop.

Imessenger

Apple has brought it to the desktop and apples attempt to destroy bbm is one step closer to completion, this is a standard chat application with pictures and video thrown in and although im not a fan of the design I do like the convience.

Dictation

Now i think everyone would agree for me when I say that siri will eventually make its way to the desktop, I don’t think that siri is quite ready yet but apple has decided to move the voice dictation feature over to the desktop. This will also help disabled users use a computer as well which I think is never a bad thing.

Power nap

Now this one has me intreged as to weather it will work, this is the idea that your mac will be able to update even when it’s a sleep, this will include it downloading all your pictures videos and other things that you have created on your iphone or Ipod from Icloud. How much battery will this use? How successful will it be? And will I be able to turn it off considering I like to wait before I update all these question will have answered when it is released next month.

Facebook

Its everywhere, share photos from iphoto, update your status from anywhere and it generally works in very much the same way as on the iphone.

Airplay/gamecentre

Not really much else to see here, using airplay you can now put your desktop on to your television (although I have no idea why you would want to). Gamecentre now comes to the desktop bring achievements to mac games as well as the iphone and ipad.

So as you can see this is very similar story to ios and the ipadification of the desktop continues unabated.